Global youth brand and urban media group Trace has acquired pan-African VOD service Buni.tv ahead of launching its own VOD platform TracePlay, which will roll out later this year.

Under the deal, Buni.tv will move under the TracePlay umbrella, providing its current subscriber base full access to TracePlay’s catalog. Both digital services are set to fully merge in the near future.

In addition, Trace will secure the pay-TV and VOD rights to Nigerian comedy series Ogas at the Top and Kenya’s The XYZ Show, both of which are produced by sister firm Buni Media.

As a result of the acquisition, Buni.tv CEO Marie Lora-Mungai will join Trace to consult on the company’s content development strategy for Africa.

Buni.tv was founded in 2012 and serves as one of the pioneers and leading VOD platforms focused on the African market.

Docu Talents reveals line-up at KVIFF

Docu Talents has unveiled its 12th line-up of creative documentary projects for the 70th edition of the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF).

Projects heading to this year’s KVIFF – which is scheduled to run July 1 to 9 – include Pavol Pekarcik’s A Long Day (Slovakia); Lucia Nimcova’s A Tall Tale (Slovakia); Karolina Zalabakova and Petr Babinec’s Batalives (Czech Republic); Ewa Podgorska’s Diagnosis (Poland); Levan Koguashvili’s Gogita’s New Life (Georgia); Petra Nesvacilova’s Helena’s Law (Czech Republic); Laszlo Csuja’s Nine Months War (Hungary).

Additional films heading to the Czech Republic include Piotr Stasik’s Opera About Poland (Poland); Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda’s Pepik the Czech Goes to Poland in a Quest for Love of God (Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland); Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s The Road Movie (Russia); Ionut Piturescu’s The Self and the Other (Romania); and Ivan I. Tverdovskiy’s There Will Be Fog on the Roads (Russia).

The program, curated by the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, will be presented at the KVIFF on July 5. All the documentaries are scheduled to release theatrically between August 2016 and July 2017. Full information about Docu Talents 2016 projects available here.

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About The Author

Meagan Kashty is an associate editor of realscreen, an international print and online magazine that covers the non-fiction film and television industries. Meagan is an award-winning business journalist. Prior to joining the realscreen team, Meagan was online editor of Canadian Grocer, named Magazine of the Year at the 2015 Canadian Business Media Awards. She can be reached at mkashty@brunico.com, and you can follow her on Twitter @MegKashty